Alien

So last night I had the honor of showing my gf Ridley Scott's original Alien film last night, and purportedly she had night-long nightmares. Now, I have shown her everything from City Of The Living Dead to Hellraiser to Uncle Sam and never has this happened. I find the whole thing to be weirdly satisfying, as I have always considered the original Alien to be a horror/suspense masterpiece comparable in quality possibly only to John Carpenter's exquisite Body Snatchers remake The Thing. Some consider Alien to "drag" in pace, but I find it to be quite the effective slow-burner. It allows you the perfect ammount of space to soak in all of those gorgeous H.R. Geiger set pieces and the beautifully sinister lighting and photography... to me this is among the penultimate horror pictures. Sure, James Cameron's sequel is a blast of a good time and perhaps one of my favorite blockbusters ever... but it is clearly an action/suspence film and is not quite the devilish excersize in film-making that makes Scott's film so perfect. I cannot wait for Scott's prequels (which will be his first sequels to his masterpiece to be executed by the man himself. Though he did a fine job by getting James Cameron, David Fincher, and Joss Whedon to work on the original sequels.) As I have griped before, I just hope Damon Lindelof's involvement doesn't hamper what promises to be an unprecedented return to glory for the franchise after the utter failures that were the Alien Vs. Predator films (I know, it sounded so good on paper.)

So either tonight or tomorrow I will be going to the cinema and have made the bold decision to see Piranha 3-D in 2D. It is only playing in 2D in run-down/ghetto theaters with no 3D capability as the film is intended to be seen in 3D, but honestly I am only interested in non-converted or extremely expensively converted 3D projects (such as the Alien prequels and Dune). I just prefer to see most movies in full resolution; (Actually it is a matter of lamberts of light, not resolution, but the effect is the same -- blurry picture.) It was hard to choose between this and The Other Guys, and I also wish to see Scott Pilgrim and The Expendables, but Piranha comes out on top dude to my love for Joe Dante, Jaws, Hills Have Eyes remake... this seems like a pop-horror wet dream.

I will update after the screening. If I don't make it until tomorrow then tonight I will most likely watch Casablanca blu as that has been in queue for a minute. During the daytime I will be watching Neil Marshall's Doomsday on HDTV -- I know this was reviewed fairly poorly, but it's not something I would expect critics to like, and so far they have been lackluster about his new feature Centurion, which I had a great, great time with (LOVE that Michael Fassbender). What is it that makes critics squeemish for gore? And what is it that gives Piranha a critical hall pass to have ultra-violence throughout and still rate highly? The answers to this question and many more coming soon.

Also today I will start playing Final Fantasy XIII for PS3, which looks to me like a perfect argument for video game as the world's most under-appreciated pop art/media -- this thing is gorgeous in 50 inces of 1080p! And the story is a truly enthralling fantasy epic unlike anything we've seen on film since Miyazaki's Nausica: The Valley Of Wind. Bring it on!